NOAA BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
CRUISE GOES DIGITAL: DATA NOW AVAILABLE IN DAYS, NOT MONTHS

The Commerce
Department's National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries research fleet
is being fitted with a new, user-friendly, on-board fisheries
data collection system that will give researchers immediate access
to fisheries survey data. The first of its kind in the United
States, the system will profoundly speed the delivery of data
from ship to shore and into the data banks of the scientists
and managers who use it.

The Fisheries Scientific Computer System,
or FSCS, was tested extensively aboard the NOAA ship Albatross
IV, based in Woods
Hole, Mass. The FSCS trial period ended April 30 at the completion
of a six-week survey, and the system was declared operational.
During the trial, survey data was recorded electronically, and
then successfully transmitted in near real-time to scientists
at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries
Science Center in Woods Hole for analysis.

"The Fisheries Scientific Computer
System will cut two to three months from the time data is collected
to the time it is ready for analysis," said Dennis Shields,
a software engineer with NOAA's Office
of Marine and Aviation Operations. "The system is an
extension of the Scientific Computer System we developed several
years ago to give NOAA oceanographic ships real-time access to
integrated oceanic and atmospheric sensor data. For FSCS, we
worked extensively with NOAA fisheries scientists to adapt the
system to the very different types of data that are collected
aboard fisheries research ships. It's been a very successful
effort."

"This represents the single greatest
improvement in data collection over the 38-year history of the
survey," said Tom Azarovitz, chief of NOAA fisheries' Ecosystem
Surveys Branch, which conducts the work. "Until now, we
have used paper logs to record a variety of information about
each fish brought up during a survey trawl. Analysts waited up
to three months after a survey cruise to work with the data while
it was transferred to a database and audited. With FSCS we will
be able to begin analysis almost immediately to update stock
assessments important to fishery managers," Azarovitz said.

The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations,
which equips, operates and manages NOAA's ships and aircraft,
will install the new system on the seven remaining vessels in
the fisheries research fleet. The next vessel to be outfitted
is the Delaware
II, also out of Woods Hole.